As an NRI do I have to declare my Canadian assets in India?
Your residential status for the year decides it. The schedule that asks about foreign bank accounts, foreign shares and overseas property is an obligation of a resident of India, and a non-resident's Indian return is confined to Indian-source income. So the usual answer for someone settled in Canada is that Canadian assets do not go on the Indian return at all. Two cautions. Status is determined year by year, so a year spent largely in India can change the answer for that year. And the position does not run both ways: Canada does want to know about Indian holdings. Fix your status for the year first, on evidence, and the contents of the return follow from it.
Do I need to file in India if tax was already deducted on my rent?
Deduction at source is a payment on account, not a settlement. The return is how the tax deducted is reconciled against the tax actually due on that income, and on rent the deduction is applied to the gross sum without regard to your municipal taxes, interest or the standard deduction, so more is commonly held back than the letting actually owes. Not filing means the excess simply stays where it is. It also leaves no Indian filing on record to support the treaty position on the Canadian side of the same income, which is the second reason to file: relief claimed in Canada is easier to sustain when the Indian return stands behind it.
Which Indian income goes on a non-resident return?
Income with an Indian source. Rent from Indian property, gains on the sale of Indian assets, interest on Indian deposits, dividends from Indian companies, and professional or employment income for work actually performed in India. Salary for work performed in Canada is not Indian-source merely because the employer is Indian or the money lands in an Indian account. What stays off the return matters as much as what goes on it, since employment income earned abroad, foreign investment income and foreign assets all sit outside a non-resident's Indian filing. Decide source income by income, because one return can carry rent, interest and a capital gain, each with its own computation and its own deduction already applied.
Tax was deducted on the whole sale price of my flat, can I claim it back?
Often, yes, and this is the single largest reason non-residents file. On a property sale the deduction is applied to the sale consideration rather than to the gain, so where the property has been held a long time and the original cost is a fraction of the price, the sum held back can exceed the tax on the gain by a wide margin. The return computes the gain properly, with cost, permitted additions and the holding period, and the excess deducted becomes a refund. Where the sale has not yet completed, the better route is a lower-deduction certificate obtained beforehand, so the buyer withholds something close to the real tax.
How do the Indian and Canadian tax years line up on my returns?
India runs April to March and Canada runs the calendar year, so one Indian year straddles two Canadian ones. Indian income has to be apportioned to the correct Canadian year when it is reported there, with the Indian tax matched to the same income for relief purposes. The advance-tax rhythm is Indian too, with instalments falling through India's own year, and it takes no notice of a Canadian filing season. The practical consequence is that relief claimed on a Canadian return often relates to Indian tax on income spanning two Indian years. Keep the income schedules by Indian year and by calendar year from the outset, because reconstructing the split later is the slow part.
Do I have to report my Indian bank interest if it is small?
Interest credited on an Indian deposit is Indian-source income and tax is generally deducted before you see it, whatever the sum. Whether a return is strictly required depends on your total Indian income against the filing threshold for that year, but the reason to file is usually recovery rather than obligation: deduction on deposit interest is applied at a flat rate with no regard to where you actually fall in the rate bands, so a non-resident with modest Indian income is commonly in credit. Note also which accounts they are, because deposits designated for non-residents have their own treatment, and interest exempt in India still has to be reported in Canada.
Do I have to declare my dual citizenship?
A tax return does not generally ask you to declare which passports you hold; it asks about residence, and in the US case it applies to citizens by definition. What does ask is your bank. Account-opening self-certification under FATCA and the Common Reporting Standard asks which countries you are a tax resident or citizen of, and the answer is reported onward to the tax authority. So the practical answer is that the information arrives either way. See FATCA reporting.
What is the Liberalised Remittance Scheme?
The Reserve Bank of India framework under which a resident individual may remit up to an annual ceiling for permitted purposes — education, medical treatment, travel, maintenance of relatives, investment in shares or property abroad — with gifts and loans to non-residents inside the same ceiling. You declare the purpose to the bank on Form A2. The ceiling and the excluded purposes are set by the RBI and have changed more than once, so the figure to work from is the one current at the date of the transfer. See Form A2 and LRS remittances.
